


a fever you can sweat out, apparently

by Rag



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Emotionally Repressed, Lack of Communication, M/M, Past Abuse, Sickfic, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-18
Updated: 2017-06-18
Packaged: 2018-11-15 11:22:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11229915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rag/pseuds/Rag
Summary: in which Dave 1) scares the shit out of Karkat and 2) learns about common sickness self-care





	a fever you can sweat out, apparently

Your name is Dave Strider and you’ve been better, but you’re mostly fine. Your body is doing that dumb thing where your joints ache and your muscles feel weak that used to happen sometimes in the spring and winter back on Earth. It’s kind of getting in the way of your plans, but you’re trying not to let it be too big of a deal. You’re meeting up with Karkat, your friend and smoochin’ partner of a few months now (technically you’re dating, yes, but neither of you want to call it that because it’s so … you don’t know what it is but it’s easier to just not label it, and what’s the difference, what do labels matter, everyone is dead, you’re fine, you’re both fine) to tear apart and put together the rooms one by one, looking for secrets. Today you’re going through the storeroom, which you _were_ looking forward to before you woke up this morning with all these wicked aches. But they’re whatever, you’ve handled worse and gotten out okay. You head over to meet up with him.

Karkat waves you over, looking even grumpier than usual. “You look awful, are you okay?”

“Thank you, darling, you’re looking stellar yourself.”

“Never call me that again. Either of those things. Seriously, you look like shit.”

“Karkat, how many times do you want to dance around in this circle? I can go all night.”

“As many as it takes for you to answer me straight. I know it’s hard for you, I'm prepared to wait.”

“I feel fine,” you say. “I think I slept funny or something, just got a crick in the ol' spine. It’s no bigs. Let’s go, the store room calls to me like a sweet siren song and I’m not tethered to a pole with ropes and Circean wax plugging my ears.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“It’s an Earth allusion, it’s something humans say to communicate they want to get a fucking move on.”

“You’re so full of shit that your eyes are brown," he says. You hold your hand out to lead him to the room and he takes it.

You shudder a bit when you open the door because holy shit this place is packed from floor to ceiling with boxes, filled with cans and materials, stacked sloppily on top of one another. Karkat lets go of your hand and starts mumbling to himself, planning out the course of action.

“So. We’ll start by collecting the shit by the walls and pushing it to the center, also taking note of any interesting contents in case we need it for building materials, or whatever else might come up. I’ve been here a few times on my own, but I couldn’t make any meaningful progress on my own and I think two people will speed things along, especially when one of them can fucking fly.”

You nod. He seems to be speaking a bit faster than usual, or maybe you’re a little slower on the draw than normal, because it takes you a while to process everything he says.

“What are we starting with?”

Karkat looks at you funny. “Are you sure you didn’t plug your ears with circadian wax? I said, we’re starting with the boxes over there.” He points at the wall on the far side of the room.

“Did you? You said that?”

“Dave, what the fuck? Are you sick?”

“What? No. Fit as a fucking fiddle, my dude.” You float over to the boxes and start lifting them, and holy shit he wasn’t lying about them being hard to move. Fuckers must be packed tight with bricks.

“Okay, if you say so.” He catches up to you a few seconds later.

The two of you work out a system where you retrieve a box from the highest tier, float it down to him, wait as he inspects it and logs the contents in this adorable little notebook that he brought along, and then stacks it in a haphazard pile in the middle of the room. It’s golden for about 10 boxes, after which you start to feel like maybe you possibly might need a break eventually. At box 13, you're exhausted.

“Think we might change places for a bit?” you ask. You're out of breath, when did that happen? “Not fair that you should be doing all the accounting.”

“And how the hell am I supposed to reach the top?”

You. Don’t know.

“Okay, just give me a second to breathe. This is hard shit.” You sit down on top of a box and it feels so fucking good to rest that you kind of don’t want to get back up.

“Is it really that heavy? It’s mostly just cans of food and sand, you haven’t even unpacked any of the granite boxes yet.”

You try to groan, but it comes out more like a whimper.

“Please, no granite, for the love of everything left alive…”

“What are saying up there? I can’t hear you, you’re mumbling.”

You take a deep breath and get back up. One box at a time, you can _do_ this. “Nothing important. Still working on this stack?”

Karkat looks exasperated. “Yes, why would we change? What’s with you today?”

You don’t answer, but you hand him another box. He logs it. You hand him another. He logs it. You’re so fucking tired, which you vaguely realize is weird, because you really haven’t done all that much today? You grab another box, lift it up. You feel incredibly dizzy for a few seconds, and then you feel incredibly good. Holy shit, you feel amazing.

“Dave! What the fuck? Are you dead? Please, please don’t die, what the fuck, why are you fucking dying, what the fuck is wrong with you, why-“

You hear Karkat and he’s definitely crying. You roll over, when did you get on the ground?

“What? Not dead.” Your mouth isn’t really working, words aren't really happening how you want them to. You open your eyes and see him looking at you, horrified and relieved. He picks you up and hugs you so tightly it’s kind of hard to breathe, but you wrap your arms around him.

“Don’t fucking die on me like this! That's so fucked up, please, don't...” He sounds fucking miserable and you feel like shit for doing this to him. Whatever it is that you did. Fat pink tears tint his cheeks and spill from his eyes onto your head.

 “I said I'm fine, dude.”

“Then what the fuck was that? Why did you pass out?”

“I passed out?”

“Yes! You fell all the way from the fucking ceiling! Are you fucking numb in the brain right now?”

Now that he mentions it, your head kind of does feel like it’s taken a beating. Ow.

“I mean, I felt shitty today? It happens. I guess I usually don’t work this hard when I feel shitty? Maybe it was too much.”

He puts his hand on your forehead and his face gets furious.

“Liar! Why did you say you weren't sick?!”

“What the hell are you talking about, I’m not sick.”

“You have a fever!”

“Dude, no, I don’t.”

“Yes you do! You’re hot as a fucking furnace! And don’t take that as a fucking compliment!”

“What are you even talking about? Seriously. I’m fine. I just feel achey and weak and shit, it’s not a fever.”

“Yes it is! Do you not know what a fever is?”

“Maybe it’s a troll thing-“

“Yeah, no, definitely not, I’ve seen Kanaya tending on Rose’s fevers, I’ve talked with her about them, they’re the exact same thing with us. Don’t try to pull that with me.”

“I…" Huh. Weird. "News to me.”

“What the hell do you think a fever is?”

“I.” You realize you don’t really know. You’ve heard of fevers and being sick and shit but mostly you just. Hmm. Didn’t apply it to yourself? Didn’t ever think to? Feeling shitty was just a thing that happened, until it didn’t, and there wasn’t anything you could do to make it any better besides wait. And whenever you felt like this in the past, on Earth, you kept it to yourself, because your brother loved fucking with you when you were weak. So you tried to never let him know. And you guess that extended to everyone, possibly including yourself? “Not sure?”

“I’m going to find your lusus and kill him again. What kind of fucking lusus doesn’t fucking teach their ward what a fucking fever is?”

That. Is kind of a great question. Huh. You feel like your defenses are too low with this weakness shit -- sick, you’re sick, apparently -- to rationalize it away, so you’re just really uncomfortable with this entire discussion.

“I’m sick?”

“Yes, Dave. You’re sick. That should have been blindingly apparent by now."

“So guess I’ll have to sit today out?” You laugh weakly.

Karkat rolls his eyes and sniffles, wipes away some of the tear streaks from his face. “Yes, you fucking born-yesterday wriggler, you’re going to sit today out, and tomorrow, and maybe the next day, too. Come on.” He picks you up pretty effortlessly, sometimes you forget how insanely strong he is and then he reminds you by doing shit like this, and carries you into the hallway and into your room. He sets you down on your bed gently and wraps a blanket around you and it feels amazing and you didn’t realize how cold you were until you weren’t anymore. You hug it around yourself.

“Thanks. And sorry.”

“What do you normally do when you’re sick? How do you treat it?”

“I… don’t?”

He groans. “Of course you don’t, because you were raised by a bumbling fucking moron that had no business being near any living creature. Let me get Rose.”

“No. Don’t tell her-“ you stop. Don’t tell her that you’re sick? Why? What’s there to lose? You’re still kind of stuck on the idea that you don’t just have to wait this kind of thing out, that there’s something you can do to make it better. “Nevermind.”

“It’s okay? I’ll be as vague as I can, but you know she’ll probably figure it out.”

“Yeah, it’s fine.”

“Try to sleep or something, I’ll be back.”

He kisses you on the forehead before he leaves which is. Nice. He’s not even out of the room before you fall asleep again.

And the next thing you know, his scratchy voice is waking you up. He hands you a glass of water and some pills.

“Apparently humans reduce fevers with these.”

“What is it?”

“Assytomafin? Fuck if I know, it seemed like a weird word even by human standards.”

“Sure, sounds right,” you joke, but you’re too tired to deliver it like a joke and he probably thinks you’re just agreeing with him. You decide there isn’t much of a risk of dying either heroically or justly by taking some random fever medicine. That and, by this point in your life, you trust Rose not to poison you. You swallow the pills, and they burn going down your throat. You wonder if that’s normal.

Karkat rubs his forehead. “You’ve never taken pills. Of course not. Why would you have? Why would a human child take a fucking pill? Except to alleviate any number of fucking maladies?”

“Karkat?”

“You drink water with them!” he says, pointing at the glass he brought over. “Otherwise it scrapes your throat! And I didn’t think to tell you because who the hell doesn’t know how to take pills?!”

You’re too tired to argue with him, and your arguments would probably suck anyways, because you never did know how to defend your brother’s shitty choices in a way that didn’t feel like a desperate, if not outright delusional fabrication. You mentally wave hello to that flaming pile of garbage you don’t want to think about, and mentally wave goodbye. Here and now.

“You’re gonna have to repeat that to me next time.”

“Yeah, sure. Fine. Go back to sleep. Wait. No. Drink this.” He veritably shoves the glass of water into your chest, but with love. “Fluids are good for this shit.” He grumbles under his breath some more curses against your lusus. You should probably explain to him at some point that they’re not called lusi, but your brain finds any level of separation you can get from that trash pile a cool comfort.

You drink the water, not meeting his eyes because while part of you likes being taken care of like this, a bigger part feels weird and wrong. Because someone else shouldn’t take care of you, not when you can take care of yourself (except with things you don’t know how to do, as evidenced).

“You don’t have to do all this.”

“I’m aware. I’m teaching a man to fish, you finless wriggling grub.”

“What?”

“Go to sleep. I’m not going to dote on you all day, don’t worry. But clearly you don’t know what the fuck you’re doing when it comes to taking care of yourself in a manner less than utterly incompetently. Just take it easy for a few days and don’t pretend you’re fine when you’re not.”

 “That’s a tall order, I’m not sure I can stack up.”

“Yeah, I know. Just sleep and don’t worry about it.”

“That’s more manageable,” you mumble. And just in time, because wow suddenly you’re exhausted. You close your eyes and stop thinking about all the weird dissonances and memories threatening to bubble up. You make a mental note to make it up to Karkat – both for taking care of you and for freaking the shit out of him – and you hope you remember when you wake up. And then you fall asleep.


End file.
